investing team
Richard Gourlay
Richard is Managing Director of Sussex Place Ventures. He was previously an investment director, Top Technology Ltd from 1996 to 2004, providing early stage venture capital for British technology companies. He continues to sit on the board of one of the portfolio companies, nCipher, which floated on the LSE in 2000, and is also on the Boards of Phosphonics and SensorNet Works, as an observer. He previously spent 10 years with the Financial Times, initially in Asia as a foreign correspondent, and then wrote extensively about the venture capital and private equity markets in the UK and Europe before becoming a venture capital investor in 1996. He started his career at Citibank NA after graduating with a BSc in economics from Queen Mary College, London University.
John Brimacombe
John has been a venture partner at Sussex Place Ventures since returning from the US in 2005 where he was COO of Hands-On Mobile, a major venture-backed mobile content delivery technology and publishing business with worldwide operations. He is also Chairman of Linguamatics, a provider of advanced knowledge discovery tools to the Pharmaceuticals sector. John previously founded Jobstream Group Plc, a software business serving the institutional offshore finance market.
John has an MA in Law and Diploma in computer science from Trinity College, Cambridge.
Nigel Trilk
Nigel is an LBS Alum and joined SPV in August 2007. Before setting up Statumen Ltd. a mergers and acquisitions consultancy with LBS colleagues, he worked at Board level in various VC backed and international manufacturing businesses where his emphasis was on manufacturing innovation and efficiency, sales growth and new product development. Since investing in his own buyout vehicle, Tri-Q Group Ltd. with Martin Urquhart in 2005, Nigel has applied his operational experience to turn around opportunities. Business interests include Waste and Recycling, Sport and Leisure, Automotive and Motorsport as well as materials innovation and manufacturing.
Nigel gained his BSc and PhD from Brunel University in Materials Technology and Engineering and holds an MS degree from Ohio State University. Nigel completed the Executive MBA at LBS whilst working at Tyco International, graduating in 2000. He is a member of the IoD and IoM 3.
Martin Uquhart
Martin is a Venture Partner at Sussex Place Ventures. He started his career with the SME practice at Ernst & Young, London before joining a breakaway firm that specialised in advising Private Equity backed businesses.
On leaving practice Martin worked with both the Sainsbury's and Homebase business units of J Sainsbury PLC. Following his time at Sainsbury's, Martin took moved to the role of Finance Director for the Berkeley Group PLC development of the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich – the largest residential development in the UK.
In 2005 Martin worked alongside Nigel Trilk in successfully concluding the £12.2M leveraged purchase of the Converted Products division from the UK based API Group PLC. The investment is held through their holding company, Tri-Q Group Limited.
Martin has an MBA from London Business School and is a member of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
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Sussex Place Ventures is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.